Twitter blocks API that lets Instagram "Find Your Friends" on Twitter

After reaching 80 million usersrecently, Instagram seems to be running into some trouble. The feature “Find Your Friends” from Twitter seems to have been disabled in the app. The feature allowed users to follow those people on Instagram that they did on Twitter. The feature is missing due to Twitter revoking the API access from Instagram. Though, users can still share on Twitter the pictures they take through Instagram.

TechCrunch notes that Twitter's decision is strange as Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter, is an investor in Instagram, along with Benchmark Capital, which is also an investor in Twitter. “One could speculate that this is a competitive move on Twitter’s part, a direct attack on Facebook’s social graph via limiting access to its recent acquisition (Instagram)”, TechCrunch added.

Users can no longer follow their friends from Twitter through Instagram

This step may the response to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram earlier this year. Facebook had bought Instagram for $1 billion. Both Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Kevin Systrom, Founder and CEO of Instagram wrote about the deal in blog posts. Zuckergerg said that for years, Facebook had focused on using photos to connect friends and families, and now they'll be able to enhance that experience with "beautiful" mobile photos. Facebook has no plans to shut down Instagram as the company has done with previous startups they have acquired. On the other hand, Kevin Systrom revealed in his blog post that with a company such as Facebook, ideas will be shared to improve the services of both Instagram and Facebook. He emphasized that Instagram will not go away. "It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience", he added.

The Android version of Instagram had recently received an update that added two main features: one, support for the Nexus 7 tablet by Google; two, the ability to directly upload photos from Instagram to Flickr, the popular online image hosting site owned by Yahoo!. The Android version of the photo editing and sharing application has seen tremendous success. It has emerged as one of the most anticipated apps to hit Android devices so far. Instagram has come a long way since its launch as an iOS-exclusive photo sharing and editing app.

Instagram had earlier announced that it has surpassed the 80 million download mark through its iOS and Android apps. This is a great feat for a company that’s still only two years old. Instagram also revealed that the number of photos shared is now 4 billion. Even earlier reports stated that Instagram had hit 10 million downloads in the first 22 days of its release on Android.